West of Loathing Wiki
Register
Advertisement

This page contains general information about Combat in West of Loathing.

Damage

There are melee attacks, ranged attacks and spell attacks which use muscle, moxie and mysticality respectively. If your attribute is higher than your opponent's attribute, you will deal more damage; if less, you will deal less damage.

Combat damage is calculated as follows:

  • Base damage range + your stat - opponent's stat = Damage range

For example, a crowbar does 5 - 6 base damage. If you have 4 muscle and an opponent has 2 muscle, you will do 7 - 8 damage with a basic attack.

Modifiers

  • Melee attack damage is further reduced by your opponent's armor value.
  • Damage by elementally-aligned attacks is proportionally reduced by your opponent's percentage of elemental resistance.
  • Various skills and perks can also modify this calculation.

Bad Guys

Bad guys generally use the same damage calculations as do you. A major difference is that base damage is computed, based on the monster region (and choice of Hard Mode or not):

Base Damage for Bad Guys
a b c d e f g h
Normal 5 7 10 14 19 25 32 40
Hard 6 10 15 20 25 30 40 50

Stats and Scaling

Outside of the prologue, opponent stats are based on their class, and the area in which they are associated. Bad guys are mostly classed as muscle, mysticality, or muscle types, with higher base stats in their primary characteristic. Some monsters have a generic class, with middling values in each of their stats, and a few special monsters have uniformly high values in all stats. Goblins are generally a little less balanced than other species---higher in their main stat, and lower in their offstats.

The actual stat values are computed based on which of the eight regions the opponent is associated with. This affects their muscle, mysticality, and moxie, but also their HP, speed, damage, and indirectly their armor (as, if present, the armor value is derived from the computed HP).

Combat is also scaled based on your current winning streak. A counter is maintained, increased by each successful combat (needs confirmation), and reduced (reset?) by failure. This value, capped at different values per region, is added onto the stats of your opponent(s) corresponding to your main stat, and a smaller increase (1/3) is made to the offstats—e.g., if you are a Cow Puncher, your winning streaks result directly increases your opponent muscle, and has a smaller impact on your opponent's mysticality and moxie. The capped value is also much higher in Hard Mode. These caps are:

Region Cap on Winning Streak
a b c d e f g h
Normal 10 10 20 20 30 30 40 40
Hard 200 300 400 500 600 800 1000 1000

Targeting

Opponents make specific choices as to the order in which they attack (breaking ties randomly). You can use this to your advantage in planning your own attacks. Generally speaking,

  • Melee/muscle and Ranged/moxie opponents will target the frontmost.
  • Spell/Mysticality opponents target the player.
  • Goblins and cows target randomly

The full list of possible targeting strategies includes:

  • highesthp (current total)
  • lowesthp (same deal)
  • mostdamaged (highest maxhp-hp value)
  • leastdamaged (lowest)
  • highestmuscle/mysticality/moxie
  • lowestmuscle/mysticality/moxie
  • primary (always either the player or the primary enemy)
  • front (frontmost)
  • rear (rearmost)
  • pardner (randomized if not applicable)
  • all (everyone on the other side)
  • targetsrow (everyone in the row of the current target, ordered from front to back)

There are also _friendly versions for bad guys who cast buffs on their allies.

Special Mechanics

  • Armor
  • Hot/Cold/Spooky resistance
  • Cover
Advertisement